Week 9: Midterm Exam
Essay：
1. What is children's literature? Are there certain specific characteristics detaching children’s literature from adult’s books? If yes, what are they? If no, why are we here to study this subject?
Children’s literature includes stories, songs and poems that are enjoyed by children. It can be broadly defined as anything that children read or more specifically defined as fiction, non-fiction, poetry, or drama intended for and used by children and young people.Children can enjoy it as an amusement.
As for the second question, my answer is yes. Firstly, the vocabularies and grammatical constructions are much easier than adult’s books and even in books, there are many cute or incorrect words like”tigger” to fit for their age. Besides, children’s literature are written from a child’s perspective. They are based on the daily experience of children. In addition, there are more pictures and illustrations in children’s literature in order to attract children’s attention and make them feel interesting. In summary, children’s literature have its unique characteristics and they can not be mixed up with adult’s books.
2.The climax is the high point of the story, where the culmination of events creates the peak of the conflict. In the plot of narrative work, a resolution consists of a series of events that follow the climax, and thus serves as the conclusion of the story, even though not all stories have a resolution. Could you (1) relocate where the climax of Charlotte's Web is and (2) analyze your resolution that (3) associated with the idea of conflicts?
In my opinion, the climax of Charlotte’s Web appears when Wilbur won a special prize at the county fair so he wouldn’t be killed.
The conflict here is whether Wilbur would die or not. Wilbur was told that he would be killed at Christmastime, but Charlotte promised Wilbur to save his life.
Since Charlotte kept her promise and helped Wilbur win the prize, he would not be killed. At the same time he was not the stupid Wilbur anymore, he began to appreciate Charlotte’s kind, cherish the friendship with her and promised Charlotte to look after her egg sac and wait patiently. Although Charlotte died at the end of the book, her children and grandchildren became friends with Wilbur.Once again, life was looking good for this little pig.
3.We’ve watched an enchanting film, "Miss Potter," based on the life of Beatrix Potter, the best-selling author of children's books of all time, this semester before the midterm. One of the phrases that opens and ends the whole movie is the voice of the title protagonist, “there's something delicious about writing those first few words of a story. You can never quite tell where they will take you. Mine took me here, where I belong.” Could you paraphrase what that means in the context of your understanding of Miss Potter’s works, life, as well as your life experience and expectation?
Life is unpredictable and changeable. We never know what will happen in the next moment but we should believe that everything is under the best arrangement and our destiny and story will take us to where we belong eventually.
Miss Potter devoted her life to drawing her cute animal friends and regarded it as the most enjoyable thing in the world. If she hadn’t drawn these animals, she wouldn’t meet her fiance, Norman Warne and then spent happy time with him. Even though Norman Warne died in the end, it took Miss Potter to review her life and took her to the Hill Top where she got much inspiration and spent her rest of life. Her story, writing and drawing, led her to love’s side and ultimately took her there, where she really belongs.
To me, life is changeable as well. I never know what will happen in the next moment. I never imagined that I was eager to be a teacher one day.
Someone told me that I can’t trust what I got now but who I am now. Under these circumstances, what I should do is to seize the day, no regret and then to believe that mine will take me there, where I belong eventually.
4.Who is Mother Goose? Is she real?
Mother Goose is an imaginary author of a collection of fairy tales and nursery rhymes often published as Mother Goose Rhymes.Mother Goose is generally depicted in literature and book illustration as an elderly country woman in a tall hat and shawl who cared about children, but is sometimes depicted as a goose.
Despite her celebrated place in children’s literature, the exact identity and origin of Mother Goose herself is still unknown.There also have been several hypotheses that a real Mother Goose at one point existed.
But in my opinion, Mother Goose is an imaginary figure in literature field who have been familiar with readers of all generations for her nursery rhymes.She is playing the role of entertaining children and helping them to behave well, a little similar to the role of “Wolf Grandmother”, but in a different way.
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